I use mine to control some old powered speakers wirelessly. So I have some Yamaha desktop speakers attached to a subwoofer that is powered directly from the mains. Rather than plugging my android phone in via the phono plug I can now wonder aimlessly round the house with my phone in hand streaming music. It all streams via the router, not directly to the speakers, i.e. “ad-hoc”, although this is a configuration you can make within the PiCorePlayer software if you wish.

Ingredients:

Android phone
AirAudio (A really good audio streaming app that costs about £4 I think and installs on phone. Supports loads of protocols.)
Raspberry Pi 3
Pi-DAC+ (this is required as the Pi’s on board audio is really poor and susceptible to interference. The DAC’s audio quality is really good)
Pi-Case+
Pi3 USB power supply (official) 5v 2.5amp
16GB Micro SD Card
EdiMax EW-7811UN usb wifi dongle
PiCorePlayer software to install onto SD Card

I’m using Apple’s Airplay protocol to stream as it’s uncompressed. The AirAudio app supports many others though, and rather than performing the task of cataloguing and playback, all it does is carries the audio output from phone to the raspberry pi which is great. This means I can use my favourite playback software which in my case is VLC. I have a DNLA media server that VLC streams from but it can also play back music directly off your phone.

One reason I don’t like Sonos is that it ties you in to using their all-in-one proprietary software. I prefer to use my favourite apps for specific purposes.

If you have a Windows PC you can also stream to your raspberry pi with the added benefit of it being free. In my case I use Foobar which is installed on the laptop (again streaming music from my media server) and stream to the raspberry pi using TuneBlade which just so happens to be free if…and this is the great bit…if you are streaming to open source servers which PiCorePlayer is. If you wanted to stream from Windows to Sonos speakers you’d need to pay.

I’m frequently logging incidents of flytipping using the FixMyStreet android app.

Ensure your gps is on, open the application, let it locate you, take photos, add brief description, send report.

You then need to open an email and press confirm to acknowledge you’d like it sent to the appropriate council and they do usually deal with it in my experiences.

It takes two to three minutes which is nothing really. Cars just drive by but cyclists can easily stop at the pace we go.

It’s likely that they could be on a 600km audax and you’re seeing them at ten in the morning after they’ve cycled all through the night.

Depends where you live surely? With regards to rent and mortgages.

Bontrager XR Mud 2.0 are my choice and I’m using them on my hard tail 29er. They’re relatively cheap at £26 an end.
Always switch my 26″ full suss to the Mud X pros with the same tread pattern at this time of year. They were cheap too but I’ve had them for about 6 years maybe more.

supersessions9-2 – Member

old candles, some beeswax and some carnauba wax in a deep fat fryer.

does the job, drivetrain stays very clean. seems to cope with wet rides ok. not that much a faff to do either (with quick links)

What’s the purpose of adding carnauba wax to the mix? The beeswax is meant to be softer than the candle wax apparently though I don’t find it makes a huge difference. I’ve not tried carnauba yet so it’d be interesting to know how this helps.

There’s an opportunity here for someone to post up pictures of their own DIY Bar End mounted tubeless kit.

Thanks Matt.

Iain, I called 0161 274 2063 which is on all the pages related to that course. If there’s another I’ll find it tomorrow

Just to clarify it is the Leadership course level 2 that I want to do and not the coaching. There’s been a few threads that seemed to recommend the BC leadership course as being pretty good. Their admin seems terrible though.

Spoken to one training company who have told me what I already know with regards to First Aid which I’ve already done. I’m confident the First Aid training company covered the areas necessary for the course but am not certain whether they are qualified in the eyes of BC.

Another thing, BC say they can send me a link to an online training package as it also says on their site, “Log evidence with British Cycling of having undergone safeguarding and child protection training”.

So I can’t get the above link, I haven’t received my log book, neither are they verifying that my Outdoor First Aid course is suitable as they’re not answering their phones, not replying to answer phone messages and ignoring my emails.

I guess I’m only posting this to see if anyone had similar issues and can offer advice that’s all. I know the rant needs to be at them but they aren’t there to be ranted at.

Depends how far you want to go really…

I’ve got a spare Giant Reign you could borrow. I’m in the South East.

I have and it hasn’t worked for the last few…

Probably need to tweak your settings then. Or, maybe you’re just unlucky.

It won’t filter out those that have just set up an account to purchase your item but then you can assume if they’ve gone to all that hassle of setting up eBay and Paypal accounts then they are genuine buyers. I guess it’d be a bit suss if somebody had had an account laying dormant for a while with 0 feedback and then suddenly purchasing your item but there’s not much you can do to prevent that. However they’d still have to comply with all the other conditions.

If it’s happening frequently, I can only suggest you try to establish a pattern behind the characteristics of the non-paying accounts and tweak your rules appropriately.

Under site preferences go to Buyer requirements and block certain ebayers. Here’s mine

Don’t have a PayPal account
Have received 2 unpaid item(s) recorded on their account within 1 month(s)
Have a primary delivery address in a location I don’t post to
Have 4 policy breaches reported within 1 month(s)
Have a Feedback score of -1 or lower
Are currently winning or have bought 3 of my items in the last 10 days

Seems to work for me

You boys need to set up stricter selling rules within your eBay account settings. I’ve not had a single issue with non payment since I did mine. Maybe I’m missing out on opportunities to sell too but who cares. If one person wants the item it’s likely somebody else will too. I also tend to get better buyers all round. No scammers.

Perhaps the ultimate headtorch…

or for considerably less $$$ but fewer programmable settings..

both work via bluetooth

I’ve been considering the Lupine Piko R7 or the Xeccon Zeta Z11 mainly for their remote option. I like the way the Lupine’s settings are incorporated within a phone app so that the actual on/off switch isn’t cycling through too many settings. It provides the granularity of options you’d expect in a high end light without having to waste time trying to ensure you’re on the correct setting or holding the button down a certain amount of time. I find my Diablo 7 can be a bit of a faff having to use one button for everything. The tap function still means I have to take one hand off the handlebar and doesn’t work as reliably as I’d hoped.

I think to be able to remotely turn on and off a helmet mounted light or change to a dimmer setting whilst on the move is the best way to manage the battery life. A switch by the handlebar grip is the way to go in my opinion.

The Diablo 9 Sync looks like it could almost be there but it’ll be interesting to see how the settings are managed. Will Exposure’s app offer the granularity that Lupine’s app offers? Can you program the remote button to perform just say on-dim-off and on-dim-dim-off, etc with various adjustments to the dim settings. So hopefully their Sync enables full customisation to the light’s settings and their remote switch works reliably. I’d also hope their remote switch doesn’t look like the ugly thing they’re using at the moment and looks a little more like the one’s which Lupine and Xeccon use.

I’ve got 2 x 5L of Virosol from ebay. It’s good at degreasing but I’m pretty sure it’s responsible for removing some of the anodising too. Can’t be certain but I’m very careful where I apply it and I wash it straight off the metal afterwards with a hose.

How did your dad find out the pipe had been tapped into? Did he trespass on his neighbours land to confirm this?

These guys amongst at least two other brands that I can think of do shimano splined one piece steel cassettes that prevent biting into crappy soft aluminium freehubs.

In my opinion the SRAM XD freehub is great but I’m surprised that SRAM don’t do a range of XD road casettes yet.

As a teenager me and my french exchange would catch and pop the little critters as they gathered under the warmth of a lamp in the bedroom of his family’s holiday home in Correze. Kept us entertained for hours. I don’t think I’d suggest this as a very effective method if you were short of time.

Johnson & Johnson Baby oil works a treat

Clearly many people here don’t like Strava and those that are berating it presumably don’t use it. Maybe they use Ridewithgps which is very good for logging routes or similarly Garmin Connect.

The major feature that sets Strava apart is it’s segment feature and the competitive nature of it and the very large number of people that try and beat these times shows it’s hugely popular whether you like it or not.

However Strava is now possibly a method of identifying individuals that are using illegal (de-restricted) E-bikes on trails. Surely that’s a good thing for everyone?

Ok, so there’s a group of four or five riders taking quite a few KOMs by pretty large margins both on road and off road. One of the riders has taken a road KOM inwhich 4777 cyclists are on the board and is leading by 8 seconds over a very experienced rider. The subsequent places are around 1 second between each other. Off road KOMs have been taken by over a minute in some cases. It’s easy to see these are deliberate KOM attempts by looking at flybys (not riding as a group through segments and stopping at the end) and the nature of their route. Backtracking, etc.

Without photos, comments and obvious signs within the analysis (supposedly) you can’t tell. Max speeds are recorded at over 25mph in some cases but who’s to tell these aren’t derestricted E-bikes?

I’m not going to flag their rides. There’s no obvious evidence.

I do wonder how Strava can overcome this issue as the leaderboards are a popular feature and differentiates them from the rest of the ride loggers on the market. Maybe Strava will only allow use of the leaderboards to those that have heart monitors? Could exclude a lot of riders though.

Another point, one thing Strava is doing is potentially catching illegal use of derestricted E-bikes on bridleways and maybe the only people that can police this are those whose KOMs are taken.

Just wondering what the future holds for Strava. There are plenty of sites that can log miles so now things could get quite tough for them.

Get an RGV250 and take it to Stan Stephens.

4.9%? Sounds like me trying to flog something on eBay for £9.99 to make it sound substantially less than £10.

I’ve reported two incidents of large amounts of flytipped asbestos very recently. In my opinion those who pay the flytippers and the flytippers themselves are equally culpable for these incidents. It’s abhorrent behaviour.

This thread’s awesome. I wish I had something useful to add but can only encourage more home brew methods. Love this sort of thing.

My experience is that Continental Race Kings are faster on tarmac due to their tread pattern

I’m living in Bahrain at the moment and believe me the UK is no where near as bad as you think. I bought an apple the other day and had to stop them giving me yet another plastic bag. There is absolutely nowhere to recycle anything.

Same in Japan. You walk into a conbini which you’ll find on every street corner practically and with everything you buy you’ll get a plastic fork, spoon and carrier bag. However, everyone takes responsibility for their own rubbish and places it into the appropriate bin. The bins clearly mark whether the items will be burnt for fuel or recycled. The streets are spotless.

I want to know when more councils will adopt smart bins and start placing them in places that need them most. Lay-bys and outside food shops and such like. There seems to be a distinct lack of bins everywhere and surely if they had smart features then bin collections could be more calculated.

Freehub bearings probably knackered

Hmmm no split between off road and on road but

59 rides
10,352km
162,718m elevation

don’t log daily commutes but that would add over 250km a week

longest day in the saddle would have been a 600km audax

I think if you’re feeling jaded from your commute then are you going to bed early enough and then leaving earlier? Your body needs to rest and you can slow down a bit on your commute. Is it 30 miles each way? That’s a lot. Perhaps take a mid week rest day if you can. The commute is good base fitness. Mines a nice distance at 12 miles each way so I can afford to go at a quick pace but a bigger distance then I’d definitely slow down. It shouldn’t impact your job.

My advice would be to focus training on big distance rides. The most you’ll find are a few 200 km audaxes at the moment and you’d need to travel to get to the start which could be a hassle. So use this time in the evening to plan a route from your front door. Maybe start with a flat’ish 80 miler and then another adding an extra 30 miles up to say 150. Any power training helps with hauling baggage up hills but it’s mainly pacing that’s important and knowing how to ride over large distances. Tomorrow evening get on Ride with GPS and plan your route for an early Saturday start and keep the route interesting. It’s an adventure you’ll be taking yourself on.

I do loads of audaxes but try and complete at a fairly quick pace. I think every country has it’s unique challenges but essentially practice doing loads of miles in as quick a time possible in one session. No science behind it.

I commute every day at high intensity no power meter or anything just ride hard. So that’s a good testing bed for my equipment and improves my power. The audaxes prove to me what distances I’m capable of so that’s the psychological aspect. Planning helps calm my nerves when it comes to the logistics. Works for me.

I did the Tour Aotearoa in 11 days this year averaging around 150 miles a day which is quite a modest amount. I know I can ride over double that in 24 hours but you need to try not to get too carried away on multi day events. The TA had a six hour compulsory stoppage rule in every 24 hour period and that does affect the daily mileage. Not sure it’ll apply in 2018. I think some of the fastest riders ignored it. I didn’t as it was a holiday for me and I didn’t want to be a zombie. Six hours is more than enough though.

But yeh in short do some audaxes with water and normal food as your only fuel. You don’t want to start thinking you need some weird power gel or whatever to fuel your body ‘cos you don’t.

Did over 900km last year whilst working 9-5 and not riding Christmas Day. Definately going to try and beat it this year but I shall not ride Christmas Day again. I just find this motivates me enough to get out there for some reason. Must be that pathetic little roundel sent out as a reward.

Bells seem to be a popular choice

Anyone know of a weather overlay that would work?

RAGGATIP’s off subject, that’s not a Ragworm, ignore.

Thought the topic here was worms. Damn I’ll have to keep an eye out for a Ragworm on my next ride now.